Tuesday, February 14, 2012

“I know that the government is spending so much on the impeachment
case. But the government should not forget that there are also other
people, mostly poor, who are in need.” – Zenaida Espiritu, vendor By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO Bulatlat.com

MANILA — While Zenaida Espiritu, 49, was tending to the plastic bags
she sells for a living along the busy stretch of Carriedo, she stops for
a while to check on what was happening near the LRT station. A member
of the women’s group Gabriela approaches her and, soon, she found
herself signing a petition paper.

“I can hardly provide a decent meal to my children because of the
continuing price hikes,” Espritu said, when asked why she decided to
sign the petition paper.She has five children. Two are already married
and one has stopped going to school. The two youngest are still
studying, one in second year high school and the other in Grade 4.

Espiritu has been a vendor in Carriedo since she was 16 years old.
She said her life became harder each passing year. Her capital for the
products she is selling has increased through the years. “When I started
selling these bags, I bought them for only $0.37. But now it increased
to $0.46,” she said, “Then, people would ask for discounts.”

She goes home with only $2.79 after a day of hard work from 9:00 a.m.
to 8:00 p.m. Her husband does not have a steady income as a
construction worker. Their meager income, amid the increasing prices of
staple goods and services, is not enough for her children. “That is why I
signed the petition paper. I hope that my signature could reach our
government and heed our call.”

Gabriela, the country’s largest women’s group, has launched
Altrapresyo(n): Alerto sa Pagtaas ng Presyo Network, a consumers
campaign network that aims to secure one million signature to repeal the
oil deregulation law and the E-VAT on oil products and basic goods and
services. The group aims to submit the petition before the House of
Representatives to oblige the lawmakers to listen to their demands.

“If the Aquino government cannot do anything to address the
consumers’ problems regarding the increasing prices of basic goods,
women would do all possible means from protesting in the streets to the
Congress,” Lana Linaban, secretary general of Gabriela, said, “We would
call the attention of the Aquino government because our impoverished
conditions and hunger would never be acceptable.”

Signing the petition

Along with the petition signing, Gabriela also conducted a free blood
pressure reading. It goes well with their campaign Altapresyon, which
literally means high blood pressure.
Espritu said she often has high blood pressure whenever the
increasing prices of staple food never seems to stop. “My children’s
school supply, gas, sugar and rice,” she added, “Before I only spend
$0.58 for a kilo of rice. But now I spend $0.88.”.... MORE

UN is applying double standards towards Syria, the country’s envoy
stated while addressing the General Assembly. He said that his country,
like any sovereign state, has exclusive responsibility for maintaining
security on its national territory.

­“Every sovereign state represented here bears an exclusive right to protect its citizens,” Bashar Ja’afari said, addressing the assembly. “We
in Syria could not imagine sending soldiers to defend OWS [Occupy Wall
Street] protesters. Neither we nor any other government can imagine
sending troops to protect demonstrators in London or Paris.”.... MORE

Following Friday’s crippling of the CIA’s official government
website, an alleged member of Anonymous has uploaded a video explaining
how the collective crushed the agency’s online presence — and why the
CIA should have been ready.

A distributed denial of service, or DDoS attack, brought CIA.gov down
for hours late last week, in one of the longest-lasting assaults
credited to the online hacktivist group Anonymous — and also an attack
on perhaps the collective’s largest target yet. With a DDoS assault, a
website’s server is flooded with an onslaught of requests, essentially
overloading its capacity and rendering it nonoperational. In a video
uploaded to YouTube over the weekend, a member claiming allegiance to
the loose-knit hacktivist group explains that the assault on the CIA’s
servers is now out of their control and even apologizes for the attack,
but adds that the move has generated attention towards something much
more serious than just the cybersecurity status of the agency..... MORE

Fancy a quick scuba lesson before going on a last-minute trip to
Hawaii? Paying in cash for a snorkel? Just shaved mustache because it
doesn’t go with a dive mask? Big Brother will spot a terrorist: “See
something, say something” policy in action.

­The 25 flyers issued by the FBI and the Department of Justice give
no mere Orwell creeps. Every area seems to be bursting with bombers:
airports, beauty shops, construction sites, banks and internet cafes.
Your tattoos master meets a bunch of them every day. Terrorists have
taken to your favorite shop with train models across the street –
remember how you pressed your nose against the glass after school? Now
press harder: see something, say something, do something for your
country..... MORE

02/14/2012
In late December, security forces in
Cairo raided US-financed groups, including the International Republican
Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The raids
were part of an investigation into illegal financing. In public,
Washington made disapproving noises and, according to an administration
official cited by the New York Times, issued a much stronger message
through private channels.

A month later, Egypt prevented Sam
LaHood, Egypt director of the IRI, from boarding a flight to Dubai. In
all, five IRI employees (three of them American) and six from the NDI
(including another three Americans) were prevented from leaving the
country. Obama had already warned Field-Marshal Tantawi, the Egyptian
leader, that military aid ($1.3 billion per year) would be at risk
unless the military regime took steps to democratize the country,
referring specifically to the criminal investigation into the US-funded
groups. After the travel ban, this warning was made public..... MORE

02/14/2012
Entering Week 5 of the impeachment trial
of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, and my attention is
called to an “incident” at the SM Mall in Cebu. This, amid rising talk
about an impending “coup” at the Senate, which I can’t, as of this
writing, comment on until, and if, it really takes place.

Anyway.
Currently screening at the SM City Cebu, all the way up to Feb. 16, is
the much-touted Cinema One Originals Festival. It was supposed to have
been a “powerful line-up” with the multi-awarded Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria
(best Asian feature film award, Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival in
Indonesia; Cinemanila 2010 Best Picture, Southeast Asian Category; and
34th Gawad Urian Best Picture),” other Cebuano-made films such as ’Di
Ingon ‘Nato, My Paranormal Romance, Confessional and Imburnal, yet
another Visayan-dialect film, but made in Mindanao. Plus, the 2011
Cinema One Originals Festival winners Ka Oryang, Six Degrees of
Separation from Lilia Cuntapay, Mga Anino sa Tanghaling Tapat, Castas de
la Soledad, Sa Kanto ng Ulap at Lupa, Sa Ilalim ng Tulay and Big Boy..... MORE

02/14/2012
With the reality of a good number of
thieves entrusted with public offices supposedly for public service plus
the fact of many racketeers, especially in the multinational corporate
world, and with the well-known wealthy political dynasties, not to
mention the known gambling agencies with their big-time gambler patrons,
it is but right and proper not only to know, but to remember well the
mandate of restitution of stolen goods — be this in kind or in cash.

And
the imperative of restitution is not merely a fundamental ethical norm
but also a basic moral principle. Otherwise, people would have a country
and a world that would provide a haven for burglars and crooks,
swindlers and racketeers — thereby making honesty a joke; integrity a
farce..... MORE

Annexes
attached by the House prosecution panel in its request for a subpoena
by the Senate Court on the Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) as
“evidence” against the head masgistrate were admitted to be fake
documents by the bank’s branch manager, who said the records presented
by the prosecution to obtain the subpoena of the dollar accounts
allleged to be owned by Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona were
not the same as the bank documents the bank has, although the numbers
al-legedly corres-pond to Corona’s dollar accounts.

The
illegally-obtained document which later turned out to be a fake copy of a
bank paper was slipped by the House prosecution panel in its request
for a subpoena from the impeachment court on the bank papers of Corona..... MORE

02/14/2012
Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato
Corona yesterday accused President Aquino of having committed
impeachable offenses, as he charged, in a press statement, that the
impeachable violation of the Constitution came when he came out swinging
by openly urging the senator-judges to disobey the fundamental law, or
the Charter, whihc the president has personally sworn to uphold.

In
the same statement, the Chief Justice denied having committed any
wrongdoing saying that “throughout (his) public career,” and that he has
never been involved in any anomaly or scandal. “Whatever assets my wife
and I have acquired are products of 45 years of toil and honest work.

My wife and I have been privileged to come
from families of comfortable means. We grew up some of the best
exclusive schools in the country. I went on to earn several postgraduate
degrees, including a Master’s degree in Harvard Law School. Our parents
provided well for our future. Family resources continue to be available
to us anytime.”.... MORE

President
Aquino is not bothered about an impending impeachment bid filed against
him by a “lowly citizen” in connection with what had been reported as an
anomalous sale of a 3.4 hectare parcel in Baguio City to the SM
Investments Corporation.

In an ambush interview with Palace
reporters, Aquino cited reasons why he wouldn’t bother to think on the
reported impeach bid against him by one Danilo Lihaylihay who had
already asked the minority congressmen to initiate impeachment
proceedings against him for culpable violation of the Constitution, high
crimes, and betrayal of public trust for the alleged anomalous sale of
the 3.4-hectare government property known as “Governor’s Park” along
Session Road, Baguio City in September.

“Inasmuch as I wanted to, I
would rather not mind it considering that this person did nothing but
to press charges against practically all the people in the government,”
Aquino said..... MORE

A ruling by
the Supreme Court (SC) has upheld the ruling of the Court of Appeals
(CA) in favor of the San Miguel Corporation (SMC) over the ownership of
more than 8,000 square meters in Valenzuela known as the Malinta Estate.

In its decision by Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo, the
high court’s First Division upheld the CA decision of April 21, 2006
decision on the case.Chief Justice Renato Corona and Associate Justices
Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Martin Villarama, Jr. concurred.

The
CA had affirmed the trial court’s judgment, which dismissed a complaint
for the nullification of the title of SMC predecessor-in-interest,
Ramie Textile , Inc., over Lot 1131 of the Malinta Estate and granted
Ramitex’ prayer for the cancellation of petitioner Leoncio Oliveros’
title over the subject property..... MORE

02/14/2012
The accused in the Pestao case are
trying hard to divert public attention from the murder charge filed
against them by the Office of the Ombudsman for the killing of naval
Ensign Philip Pestao in 1995.

There are circumstances in the
killing of Pestao and certain acts that indicate not only the
involvement of the accused in the murder but also in the subsequent
cover-up of the crime.

Their assertion that Pestao committed
suicide was belied by forensic experts local and international who
were presented by the parents of the victim before various investigative
agencies over the course of the last 15 years since the murder was
committed..... MORE

02/14/2012
The administration of Caloocan Mayor
Enrico \"Recom\" Echiverri yesterday assured the residents that it has
been maximizing its resources by conducting regular inspections of all
buildings and other similar structures in the city to determine if they
can withstand a strong earthquake.

Echiverri issued the statement
in the wake of the recent tragedy that struck the Visayan region that
resulted in scores of casualties and damages to property.

Just the
same, the Caloocan chief executive has directed anew the members of the
City Engineering Office to make sure that all buildings in the city are
thoroughly checked on their structural integrity and compliance with
the building code..... MORE

02/14/2012
Manila City Hall authorities yesterday
clarified that the additional monthly financial assistance being given
by the city government to the teachers had to be stopped after the
Commission on Audit (CoA) questioned its legality.
This
clarification was issued by Ric de Guzman, chief of staff and media
bureau director, who cited a memorandum dated Nov. 21, 2011, questioning
the grant of the said allowances to teachers and other national
employees stationed in Manila which was issued by city auditor Chito
Ramires.

De Guzman said that the P2,000 regular financial
assistance is being given to the teachers on an updated basis and the
only one was questioned by CoA was the P500 being given additionally on
top of the P2,000..... MORE